The following relates to the facilitation of communications between two people who do not share a common language. It may be applied to hospital communications between doctors and patients, and will be described with particular reference thereto. The following may also be applied to any type of inter-language communication, data collection, and a variety of similar applications. For example, “doctor” shall be read to include doctors, nurses, any type of health care provider, and any type of person or system that needs to collect data and/or provide instructions; “hospital” shall be read to include any type of health care institution, and any institution that collects data and keeps records; and “patient” shall be read to include hospital patients, as well as any other type of person or system that is required to provide data and/or receive instructions.
Hospitals typically use hundreds of different forms to gather medical data from their patients, additional forms to provide instructions, and still other forms to collect patient signatures. These forms may cover anything from administration of medicine, to proper diet, to the acknowledgement of informed consent. Hospitals expend significant resources keeping these forms in stock, organized, and readily accessible. Inventory complexity increases significantly when forms are required in multiple languages.
In addition to the inventory and organizational problems, there are inter-language communication problems. If the doctor and patient do not share a common language, the doctor will have trouble explaining the form to the patient, and may be unable to elicit a meaningful response. Patients may describe their conditions more accurately in response to diagnosis forms in their own language. Likewise, printed health care instructions are nearly useless if written in a language the patient cannot understand.
Although a variety of “on the fly” or “real time” software based translation solutions exist, their translations are prone to errors. Translation accuracy is critical for medical diagnosis and patient instruction.
Hospitals often employ human translators. While expert human translators provide accurate translations, they are expensive, and often unavailable (especially at night).
Therefore, there is a need for a system to keep an inventory of documents in a plurality of languages in stock and readily accessible. Furthermore, there is a need for a high-accuracy system to facilitate the explanation and discussion of such forms and documents between people who do not share a common language.